Sunday, 27 October 2013

Military Professionals - Are You Missing On Networking ?

Career Transition Tips # 4; The Power Of Networking

“Networking has turned
out to be the most powerful tool for job hunting in the recent times”.

In this five articles series on career transition, we have already seen the value of
accepting the change of uniform from military to corporate( click here), the
overwhelming benefits of starting early in career transition( click here) , and the
importance of knowing yourself ( click here). In this fourth article, we will
see the advantages of networking and what best practices the retiring/retired
military professionals can employ for a better career.

With the
popularity of social and professionals platforms such as facebook and LinkedIn
,Networking has gained enormous importance in today’s time for finding the
right job opportunity. The traditional method of meeting each other also hold
the importance though in today’s fast –paced
environment , there is too little time for face-to-face socializing and
networking.

Military professionals aren't encouraged to take active participation
on social platforms during their military service due to the services
constrains. On the other side, Networking is an art which an individual learns
gradually, spending time on these platforms and examining new techniques. Therefore, when a serving personnel is on the verge of retirement, his network is
restricted to only his circle, which constitutes mostly military professionals,
whereas he is stepping into a world which is full of corporate people, who are
unfamiliar to him. Also, In the times of recession and gloomy economy,
employers and recruiters just don’t want a bad hire and therefore they want to
recruit someone whose referrals are available to them from a trustworthy
contact. All this together places the military professional at a major
disadvantage when it’s time for him to enter the corporate world. A few practices can help military
professionals in finding their dream job with less stress.

An account
on these social platforms will mark your presence for further exploitation. A
LinkedIn account is your mini-resume and hence gives a good glance of your
profile. Make sure to complete your profile in all aspects as doing so increases your chances of meeting the
eye of the recruiter. LinkedIn is used extensively by recruiters to find the
suitable candidates for their companies. Make sure your profile has
recommendations from your links or contacts.

If you have
lost touch with your school or college friends who are in corporate, use
facebook and LinkedIn to get in touch with them. Those friends have been in corporate for long and can really
help you not only in understanding the
corporate dynamics but also in finding a suitable job in corporate. Suppose
your school days friend happens to be connected with the recruiter of the
company that you would like to work
with, Your friend can act as the required link between you and the recruiter. Try
to take out some time during your leave to connect with some of your friends in
corporate.

The social platforms
also have companies pages and following them may help you in finding the job
openings in that particular company( For M2C’s company page, click here and
here).

Once you've shortlisted the career that you’re interested in, you can join the domain
specific groups to know the various practices,
and take part in discussion related to these groups. For example, if you’re
interested in Aerospace and Defence industry, joining groups of this field will
allow you to interact with professionals working in various Aerospace and
Defence industries. You can even connect with them and seek their suggestion on
how to make your profile stronger. Also once you actively participate in
various discussions on these groups, you will start getting noticed by the
industry people and you will find more and more people are viewing your
profile. This way you increase your chances of your profile meeting the eye of
the recruiter.

Once you’ve
shortlisted 20-30 companies that you want to work with, you can use the search
engine in LinkedIn to know which all employees are from military in that company. For
example you are interested in working with XYZ company and you want to know the work culture and the
environment from a ex-military professional working in that company, you may
search with the company’s name and Indian army or Air force or Navy , you will get a list of military
experienced professionals who have worked in the past or are working presently
with the company. You can even be friend with them to get a lead for working
with that company. The shared values of our past military profession allows an
opportunity for us to connect with other military professionals and help out each other.

In this
telescopic world, networking has become an essential job finding tool and a
detailed understanding of the best practices in networking allows the exploitation of this
tool to our advantage. Those who actively engage with other professionals face
to face and also on social platforms will gain more than those who use only one
of the two ways. Other related articleHow to exploit best out of networking sites